Uh, not me personally, my blog. One year ago this week I started this endeavor and now look where we are. Scary, huh?

So by Thai counting, this blog is now two years old. That’s the problem with numbers, it’s too easy to tweak them to provide the results that will make you happy. And that’s why I don’t use a hit counter on the site. It really doesn’t tell you much; the older versions still count a ‘hit’ for every graphic that loads, meaning one page with 15 pictures on it with a single visitor racks up 15 ‘hits’. Even the better ones don’t differentiate between someone who drops in and immediately flees and someone who stumbles upon the site and then spends the next three days reading every post you’ve ever written.

But people seem to love numbers, and though the only ones that ever concern me are those that tally length, I thought ‘d share some of mine with you.

Thanks to some not too shabby SEO efforts and keywords designed to attract those who I’d tend to think would enjoy my musings, my daily visitor averages now hover around 1,300. That number represents unique visitors (as opposed to a sum of all pages they clicked over to) both new and returning.

On average, of those visiting on any given day, 575 are returning visitors – those of you who like any good masochist return to the scene of the crime again and again. I’m sure that would be a higher number if I didn’t offend people so often; which is a lot easier to do than you’d think. I’m still debating whether my goal for this next year is to increase the returning visitor count or to offend a great number of people. But them knowing me I’m sure it’ll be the latter. In my book the easier road is always the better choice.

And speaking of offending people, some of you really need to get a life. 32% of visitors stay on my blog for over an hour. I’d have said ‘stay on my blog reading posts for over an hour’ but I have a strong feeling a majority of those visitors are lubed up and stroking away so it’s not so much about reading prose as indulging in fantasy. A laugh, an orgasm, if I brought you either I’m good with that.

I started this blog intending it to be primarily about Thailand. That slowly evolved and branched out to include subject matter of general interest to gay men. That’s still pretty much where it’s at, but I’ve allowed for room to post any stray thought that pops into my brain too. That’s the nice thing about a personal blog. It’s personal. There are no rules about what you can and can not write about. And I’ve learned as long as I post enough pictures of hotties, no one complains about the other content.

I’ve also learned there is an entire community of gay men who enjoy Thailand beyond the crazies, disenfranchised, and made-up characters who routinely post on the gay Thailand message boards. That has been a nice benefit. I’d thought this blog would be a source of amusement for me (and hopefully for you too but then since that’s not about me, I don’t really care). It has been. But it has also introduced me to many of you and I have to tell ya, I’m impressed.

Witty, intelligent, often insightful, those of you who post comments frequently make whatever point I was attempting much more eloquently than I. More so, it’s that you guys are normal sane people who speak with a refreshing honesty that far too often gets lost among the dementia that clutters the message boards. It’s nice to learn that there is a large group of guys who love SE Asia as much as I do who are not creepy or crazy. But have enough of a sense of humor to not take anything I post too seriously.

A year ago I made my introductory splash with a snarky post about Boo Hoo and his blog which resulted in his spending the following month desperately posting from one board to the next in an attempt to remind people of what a nice guy he thinks he is. And perfectly illustrated the points I’d made in my post in doing so. That post introduced my blog to the gay Thailand message board community, and quickly rid me of the pretentious fools, posers, perverts, and pedophiles who might otherwise have infected my little corner of the internet. And brought my initial core group of readers to my blog too. Sometimes it’s a win-win and you get both sides of the win.

Like many, my initial foray into the gay Thailand world on the internet, to fill the gap between visits, was with the message boards. I always assumed that is where the majority of my visitors would come from. Nice to finally have been wrong about something, people have been warning me about that for years. A mention on one of the forums is good for a few dozen visitors at best. Unless the poster had something really negative to say, then the number doubles. (Thanks guys!) Channing Tatum’s penis has done more for my visitor count than anyone else. Though Joe Manganiello’s ass comes in a close second. And any post that mentions Tawan drives a swell of visitors this way. Guys who visit Thailand and appreciate beefy, masculine men are sorely under represented on the internet. I’ve not run the numbers but suspect the recent upswing in people dropping by my blog is thanks to the universal interest in my Ubiquitous Plastic Stool Shot! series.

Noom has a legion of fans on the internet. He’d be thrilled to hear how many people click in weekly to read about him because he loves himself almost as much as I do. But that warm fuzzy feeling would quickly fade when he realizes that adoration doesn’t transcend into baht. Because he always has his priorities straight, I can easily imagine him asking, with his forehead scrunched in confusion, “Why you not make money?”

The internet is responsible for adding many new words to our vocabulary; one of the most stupid is ‘monetizing.’ The sheep of the world have picked up on the term, which really only is used by hucksters trying to convince people who have no real hope of doing so that they can become filthy rich by learning the secrets of how to make money off of your internet site. For a mere $39.95. When I started this blog I had numerous choices of hosting sites to choose from, many that offer blog space at no charge. I went with WordPress because they do not allow you to get rich quick via Google Adsense or blog ad placement. I have a nasty habit of making money off of my hobbies. I thought I’d keep this pastime a pastime for a change. Which is a benefit to you. Otherwise, in the best tradition of drug dealers the world over, now that ya’ll are hooked on Noom I’d be forcing you to pay for the privilege of feeding your Noom joneses. And Noom would be good with that.

I’ve made quite a few changes to the blog over the last year and there are several still to be made. That’ll take a while because I procrastibate a lot. The additional content and subject matter stems from my little twisted brain, formatting and layout improvements have come via suggestions and complaints from readers. I do listen, I’m just slow to react. So, please, keep those type of comments coming. But don’t take that as an open-ended request to dump on me.

With both the Golden Globes and Academy Awards having recently aired maybe it’s not surprising that this is starting to sound like an acceptance speech. So in the best tradition of bad turns at the microphone I’ll leave you with: “You tolerate me! You really tolerate me!”

Thanks for having stuck around. Thanks for providing me with more laughs than I’ve provided to you. And mahalos for being part of my wolf pack.

Hope ya’ll stick around for another year.